The present invention relates to a system for making and assembling cisterns.
As is known, cisterns are at present broadly used for holding or carrying lipids having very different physical-chemical characteristics, such as alimentary liquids and special liquids for preset industrial applications.
The above mentioned cisterns, to be used for holding or carrying said liquids, must meet given operating parameters, allowing to preserve their efficiency and integrity under all the provided use condition.
Thus, high quality standard are required in controlling and monitoring each made cistern in order to verify that each said cistern meets the set requirements.
At present the mentioned cisterns conventionally comprise a plastic material tank having the bottom thereof anchored to a pallet, in turn made of a metal alloy, wood or plastic material, said cistern being encompassed by a metal cage, anchored to said pallet, which latter operates as a structural supporting element.
For making the mentioned metal cage, steel pipes are conventionally used, said steel pipes being welded to one another and then subjected to a bending operation.
At present, the above mentioned cisterns are made in scarcely automatized systems, in which the delicate welding and monitoring steps are performed manually.
In said systems, substantially manually controlled apparatus carry out the cutting, welding and bending operations on the metal cages, whereas, simultaneously, the pallets are made, for example, by plastic material molding apparatus, or are assembled starting from metal or wood parts. The plastic tanks, which can be separately constructed, are then brought to the end assembling zone, where they are manually assembled.
The disclosed prior systems, while solving the indicated technical problem, are affected by the following disadvantages.
Said prior systems, which comprise manually controlled apparatus, require very high operating times for making said cisterns, both because of practical requirements associated with the making mode of operation thereof, and since the quality controls on the finished product are, as stated, performed manually.
In particular, the manually performed welding operations require a lot of labour, thereby unavoidably increasing the cost of the product.
Moreover, the end product does not present consistent mechanical characteristics, since the controls performed in the above mentioned prior systems are actually carried out by skilled operators, instead of using automatized calculation and measurement systems.
The above mentioned prior systems, moreover, can be hardly automatized, because of the tubular construction used therein for making the metal cage of the cisterns, which tubular construction can not be automatically easily processed, in particular because of a lot of problems related to the welded part strength.
Accordingly, the aim of the present invention is to overcome the mentioned drawbacks of the prior art.
Thus, the invention relates to a system for making an assembling cisterns, allowing to make said cisterns in a fully automatic manner, starting from semifinished articles of manufacture, thereby reducing the making time and cost, and drastically improving the quality controls on the finished product.
Briefly, for achieving the above mentioned aim, as well as yet other objects, which will become more apparent hereinafter, the invention provides a system for making and assembling a cistern, comprising means for locating, cutting, driving, welding, bending, drilling and assembling the component parts of said cistern, wherein said system provides sequentially said locating and cutting means in a first and second stations, for arranging, under an automatic control, the metal components of an outer cage of the cistern on said automatized driving means, which are operatively coupled to said automatized welding, cutting and bending and drilling means, which, as automatically controlled, complete the making of the metal cage encompassing the cistern, and then convey it to the mentioned assembling means which, as automatically controlled, complete the making of the cistern by assembling a pallet, a tank and said cage, wherein each of said automatized means is jointly controlled by a central control unit.
The system for making and assembling cisterns according to the invention is characterized by the characteristics claimed in claim 1.
The system for making and assembling cisterns according to the invention provides the following advantages.
Each individual operating step is automatized and controlled, with obvious advantages related to the operating-yield and the finished product quality.
Consequently, the finished product will have an overall less cost, both due to the savings in labour and the product control quality, meeting the standard requirements provided by the enforcing standardizing rules.
More specifically, said controls will be very practical and advantageous with respect to the weldings performed during the making cycle, which have been very critical in prior art methods.